3. Homonyms.
(1) Allowable Itomonyme.—Of not less import¬ance, but wholly distinct from the general or specific character of words, is their double meaning. It is an effort to make an economical use of a small verbal cap¬ital that causes every language to contain many words with several distinct meanings. They begin, doubtless, in metaphor, but finally cannot be distinguished from plain speech. The use of words in a second or third sense affords very little embarrassment to an intelligent mind, unless the same word appears with more than one sense in the same sentence. The word head may mean a part of the body ; a chief or leader ; the large end of anything, as of a nail ; the place where the head should go, as the head of a bed ; the place of command or honor ; the intellect, as distinguished from the feel¬ings; the source, or fountain ; a division of a discourse ; the foam on a pot of beer ; and power, or force, as when Shakespeare says, "My lord, my lord, the French have gathered head." We seldom mistake the meaning of such a word in any of its uses, because the connection suggests the sense. (2) Ambiguous Homonym—It is no.. so, how ever, in all oases. Some words signify thing/ so nearly alike that we are at a loss to determine whmh of two are intended. Pope, in his "Essay on Criti( ism," uses the word "wit" with at least seven different meanings, and for their shades of distinction we are innendent entirely on the context. The worst variety of the fault appears in the use of the same sound or form in more than one sense in the same connection. This is the principle of the pun and the most common form of fallacy. Its more playful bearing is illustrated in the following advertisement of a baker : "The subscriber, knowing that all men need bread, wishes the public to know that he also kneads it ; and he hopes that the best bred people in the city will find him the best bread man." When the double sense is obvious and is playfully intended, it is regarded as a pun, and passes for innocent wit ; but when the true sense is concealed and the coincidence of sound or form misleads the understanding, it is called the fallacy of aobiguous middle, and becomes a potent in¬strument of the sophist. Thus in the syllogism, A plain style is intelligible, This is a plain style ; therefore This style is intelligible if in the first premise the word "plain" is used as )p. posed to obscure, and in the second as opposed to ornamental, the conclusion that the style in question is intelligible may not be correct, for while the absence of obscurity insures intelligibility, the absence of orna¬ment does not in any way affect the intelligibility. • The use of a word which in its connection is capa¬ble of more than one meaning either confuses ithe thought or has no effect upon the mind. In Swift's expression, "A little after the reformation of Luther," if we really think, we shall be in doubt whether the Dean refers to Luther's personal.abandonment of Romanism, or to the religions revolution of which he was the leading spirit. In the phrase "the love of God," " of " is ambiguous, since the expression may mean God's love to us, or our love to God.